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Jamie Joseph plays around with combinations as Michael Leitch reclaims the captain's armband


Jamie Joseph
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Unlike the other teams in the Pacific Nations Cup, Jamie Joseph has resisted the urge to make mass changes to his side for the second round of the competition.

On Saturday, Japan will host Tonga in Osaka. Joseph has made just five changes to the starting XV that accounted for Fiji 34-21 last weekend.

Michael Leitch will make his first start for the year after sitting out all of Super Rugby with a chronic groin injury. He will take over at on the blindside flank whilst Yoshitaka Tokunaga will come into the team in place of last weekend’s captain, Pieter Labuschagne. As such, Leitch will also take back the captain’s armband.

Yutaka Nagare swaps into the starting side for Kaito Shigeno and Lomano Lemeki comes onto the left wing for the first try scorer of last week’s match, Kenki Fukuoka.

Historically, Tonga and Japan has been a fairly even contest, with Tonga winning 9 games to Japan’s 8 in head-to-heads. Last time the two sides clashed, in 2017, Japan ran out comfortable winners, 39-6.

The match kicks off at 7:10PM, JST.

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Phantom 35 minutes ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

South Africa used to limit its selection to the home based players, but the reality of a weak currency vs what players could earn oversees meant that you lost access to your best players at some stage of their careers, with very few exceptions. Kolbe left SA as he was considered too small for International Rugby (yes coaches/selectors view), but ironically in France he forced selectors to notice his endeavors and select him. He is only reaching 50 caps now despite being north of 30 - granted rotation and the odd injury also played a role, but for the most part it is having debuted or becoming a regular so late.



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